Monday, February 27, 2006

Rosy Cheeks

That's what we had during our weeks winter holiday in Bjorli, around a third of the way up this wonderful country. The sun shone and temperatures during most days came up close to freezing, very comfortable cross country skiing conditions. On our last 2 days the wind blew strongly and that ruled out a trip up to the top of the mountain, which was a shame.

A new comer to skis was The Thoughtful Scotsman. After a couple of practice sessions in Dombas, where we spent a night on route, he seemed ready for his first trip. This was an 8Km round that was described as a little up and down but all the same easy. In fact this was 4Km steep up followed by 4Km steep downhill. To a new beginner both steep up and down are difficult, so this was a long and painful trip for T.S. We chose our routes more carefully there after and by the end of the week T.S. was more or less in control going down hill and wanted more, completing a 16Km circuit in 31/2 hours (including a stop for lunch), counting the number of times he fell with the fingers of one hand.















A great week of fresh air, snow, exercise, good food, good company, good beer, fine wine, a rather delectable Scotch Whisky and most important relaxation.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures AW. Even the one of me recovering from one of the many falls of that day!

A

PS: Whisky (I didn't realise they could use that spelling in Canada and Japan too)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_whisky

Viking Longship said...

Sorry, duly corrected.

Interesting link

the other cold one said...

Erm, I believe that both spellings of whisky and whiskey are correct. One denotes an Irish brand, and the other a Scottish brand. Which is which, I'm not sure, but the word comes from the Gaelic, 'uisce beatha' water of life!